So when I was young I liked a bit of horror much as I do now. I can remember really enjoying a film called Warlock which came out in 1989 but I am sure it was a few years latter when I originally saw it. The films story concerned an evil 17th century warlock who flees to the 20th century pursued by a witch-hunter. If you haven't seen it then think Terminator but with an evil Wizard instead of a killer robot and your not a million miles away. There was all kinds of creepy things in it like the Warlock befriending a boy to then kill him and use his fat to make a flying potion which just stuck with me for a long time. So why the heck am I talking about a 1989 horror film in a SNES review? Well basically because there was a Warlock game, but was it based on this film or just a game with the same name you might be asking. Well despite being called Warlock its sort of closer to being a Video Game adaption of the films sequel Warlock Armageddon, it doesn't follow the exact same story as that movie though it merely focuses on elements of the sequel, such as druids and runestones to tell its own story. Warlock is a side-scrolling action video game which was released in 1995 a full two years after Warlock Armageddon was released, it was made by Realtime Associates with the Snes version being published by LJN and the megadrive one being published by Acclaim Entertainment. I know sometimes I start comparing SNES and MegaDrive games but in this case I have yet to play the MegaDrive version so wont be doing that.

I know the mention of LJN probably already has people cringing but in fairness they only published it, and I think everyone probably knows a lot about them but maybe not as much about Realtime Associates. Realtime Associates is an American video game developer founded in 1986 by David Warhol and a group of ex-Mattel Electronics employees originally to create games for the Intellivision system. They published over 90 games for various systems, including but no limited to the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Super NES, Genesis, Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Game Gear. They are probably best known either for being the developers of the NES version of Maniac Mansion or for being responsible for the Playstation and Saturn Versions of Crusader No Remorse. They did make original titles but I think there mostly known for porting things to various different platforms.

I so wanted to like this game the film was such a major hit for me but yet when I tried this game all I was left with was a whole pile of issues with it, for a start it is not terribly clear what you are supposed to be doing. There is also the fact that the story in the game is a right jumble by the time this came out you had two Warlock films to pick and choose story elements from and yet here it looks like they picked tiny bits from the second one and didn't even bother to sow them together with anything of much worth. You have to find the 6 runestones before the warlock, a lot of this is told mostly with scrolling words at the start and a little animation of druids.

Well I am always saying that the Game play is the most important thing so hey lets get down to talking about it. Well it is pretty darn hard to control your character, the worst thing for me is that when you attack, you stop moving, which totally slows down the pace of the game. You want to be running about throwing magic bolts all over the place but instead the game is totally full of this kind of boring stop and start mechanic. Add on to this that when enemies appear on screen well with the ones who rush towards you, you basically need to nail them straight away to stand a chance so if your making a real effort to progress you find yourself inching forwards slowly bit by bit. Add on to this the fact that the jumping feels tricky and that with harder enemies that don't instantly die well your just not manoeuvrable enough to get out of there way so it becomes a war of patrician hammer them as much as you can while getting hammered hoping that they die first. With the enemies who throw energy bolts at you if you get used to it you can time it right to jump them so in these cases things actually work a little better. If I was going to try to describe this to someone from this well I guess I would kind of go for a description of Castlevania the eton mess edition.

I will do a quick run down of what else the game has to offer. The graphics are all right, that's about as complementary as I can get, they are not bad but there not that good either. There are different enemy sprites and backgrounds so things are not too repetitive in the graphics side which is something nice for me to say I guess. I also need to point out that the games title Warlock on the title screen being on fire looks excellent, as does the digitized style face you see of the guy who played the Warlock in the films. As for the sound well it is all right, but the music really does get very boring after awhile, there is too much repetition.

Overall I think this game is really not worth your time unless your an absolute SNES obsessive. It cost me about £7 if my memory is correct and this is too much for it. I strongly recommend that you ignore the game and instead look at investing in a copy of the original Warlock film especially if you like horror films and enjoyed the original Terminator because it has a similar sort of vibe to it. If I need to give this game a score out of 10 I would give it a 4, there are much worse games out there but then there are a heck of a lot better as well, id call this average leaning to bad.

I didn't realise the forum was shutting, I'd really appreciate help moving it OR and I would really like to thank you for all of your support with this whole SNES game project and for running this forum giving us all somewere to chat and hang online.

I am a little embarrassed how long this project has been taking me in all honesty, I have grabbed some new games and I'm determined to get it finished this year, I'm currently half way through a Toy Story review.

I didn't realise the forum was shutting, I'd really appreciate help moving it OR and I would really like to thank you for all of your support with this whole SNES game project and for running this forum giving us all somewere to chat and hang online.

I am a little embarrassed how long this project has been taking me in all honesty, I have grabbed some new games and I'm determined to get it finished this year, I'm currently half way through a Toy Story review.

Read the announcement if you haven't already, I know it can be easy to miss announcements if you're used to only going to specific threads!

I'll check with the staff over on GRcade what the easiest way of moving over the reviews is, so I'll get back to you shortly :)

The first ever one I did here, would be great to get them all up at the same place and more importantly all finished....

Ok thought I would set myself an interesting little challenge. I am going to play 150 SNES games in 150 days, 1 a day. Now I am not going to try and complete them all but I am goings to try and play them at least enough to say a little something, maybe give a quick review. Now I intend to do all of this on a real snes using real carts. I probably own about 130 so will have to pick a few up along the way.

ADDED I actually failed the challange. I got a new job and found it hard to find time for this, I then lost my new job because while I was still in my trial period they decided to make cutbacks.. after this I sat around feeling sorry for myself and then I have continued playing SNES games but at a slower pace.

I have started today by Playing Hook

Hook the game was made for the Snes by Sony Imagesoft (Latter to be known as Sony Computer Entertainment). They took the basic plot of the film, and then went off in their own direction. Hook the video game only shares a very basic level of plot with Hook the movie

Basically Peter Pan grew up had kids and became a chubby business man forgetting all about neverland. Captain Hook kidnaps Peter's two children, Maggie and Jack, and holds them hostage. So Tink the fairy fetches Pan and carries him to neverland. Now in the film there is a whole big long thing of Peter becoming the pan again but in the game tink sprinkles him with fairy dust and bang he is in green tights ready to go. The first level is basically Pan proving he is the Pan to the lostboys by kicking there ass and from there on in he is kicking the angel delight of anything he can reach while making tricky jumps and avoiding enemies through level after level.

The game is basically your standard 2D platform game but it’s a good one not one of those hastily thrown together cash in’s which is surprising really with it being a movie tie in. The levels are challenging and well designed. The graphics although not stunning suit the game and are filled with nice little touches Peters hair and clothes blowing in the wind being one example, the character of Pan kind of does look like a cartoon Robin Williams even though they apparently didn’t have the rights to peoples likenesses everyone kind of looks like a simple anime inspired version of their real life counterpart.

The film had a John Williams' orchestral soundtrack and most of this seems to have been converted into digitized 16bit versions which really adds to the feeling that this is a quality production. I won’t say that Hook is perfect though, it has its issue there are some isues with its difficulty balance. As a game that was intended for kids it is just to hard, I remember never seeing very much of this game as a child, as an adult though this is no real problem I have given this game about 2 hours today and I am just a little bit away from the end, really it is a short game which is hiding the issue of its length behind a difficulty wall which would obscure this from its original customer base. I wonder how many kids threw there pads in anger and declared that this game sucked just because it was a touch to difficult, still there parents would have been annoyed if there kids had managed to finish it in 2 hours.

I guess I would give it a 7 out of 10 …. I like it a lot but I don’t think its an all time classic.

I brought this game of a market, just the cart itself, I can’t remember the price but I know it was somewhere between 50pence and £3 now days having a quick look the cart seems to be going for anything from £15 to £25…. If your in to chasing retro games I would say its worth £15 but I personally wouldn’t go spending £25 on it unless it was boxed and in good condition.

I spoke to GRcade folk and they'd love to help move this project over. What we'll do is collate all the reviews into a thread behind the scenes (one review per post) that will then have its ownership changed to you as it is moved into the public Games folder. Then you'll be able to continue on as you were in a thread with the entire history in it, if that sounds good!

I'll keep you updated, I imagine it'll take a few days. I can find the first 50 on your blog right?

EDIT:

I couldn't find the first lot on your blog, do you know where they are available?

The issue is the first 50 were on my old blog which was closed down as the host site shut down. So I need to scratch and find the next 49 from there.... If you want to post up whats here then I will sort out filling in the blanks later

I have taken so long over this whole thing its becoming embarassing lol

The issue is the first 50 were on my old blog which was closed down as the host site shut down. So I need to scratch and find the next 49 from there.... If you want to post up whats here then I will sort out filling in the blanks later

Hi kerr, I've copied across all the reviews from here onto GRcade into a new thread and change the post author on them all to you - the thread is sitting ready in the staff room to be moved into the Games folder for all to see. Do you think you could write a short opening post for the thread to briefly explain what it is and where it has come from to GRcaders? Once I add that to the start of the thread then I can move it across :)

OK so its back to a Disney game again. I am going to be reviewing Toy Story on the SNES. So Toy Story is a side-scrolling platform game which was released by Disney Interactive Studios in 1995. The game came out for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, the Nintendo Game Boy, Microsoft Windows and of course the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which is obviously the one I am going to be talking about.

The game might have been released by Disney Interactive Studios but it was actually made by Traveller's Tales, who are a British video game developer which was founded in 1989. Most people will probably know Travellers Tales for there more recent games in particular there Lego games especially the Lego Starwars games. Travellers Tales still essentially exists it was purchased for an undisclosed amount on the 8th of November 2007 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Toy Story was a pretty important film really when you stop and think about it, after all it was the film which brought about a new age of 3D animation, it was also to a certain extent the start of the end for Disney’s traditionally animated films. This is not the first time I have talked about Pixar in relation to games strangely that would be Unirally/Uniracer but this is the first time I am talking about a game which was at least to some degree trying to bring the official Pixar experience to a home console to decide whether it succeeds or not I guess one would have to define what Pixar as a studio really stands for, what makes its films different to others and does the game live up to this in any way shape or form?

Toy Story follows the basic plot of the movie, yes it doesn't follow it to the letter but if you have seen the film then you will basically know whats going on. Most of the time you control Woody the cowboy who controls pretty much like you would expect for a typical platformer, the direction pad controls what direction your going in and then you can jump around and you can use Woody's lasso. I have to give the game credit for the fact that it is mixes things up a bit. There are the standard platforming stages where the idea is the usual leap over this and that avoid taking too much damage and reach the levels end. Then you get stages which can best be described as sort of scavenger hunts where you have to search for toys or other items. Then there are also chase stages and boss battles so you could say things remain pretty varied which can if handled correctly can help to make games like this remain fun for longer.

The standard platform stages suffer though from being formulaic,yes they tick a lot of the boxes decent controls, graphics which look quiet a lot like the source material but there is no real defining attribute to them that you wouldn't find elsewhere. Woody's platformer stages never introduce anything new to the game but I guess the developers felt that they didnt have to do anything much with them because they went to a lot of trouble to break them up with other different game types. For instant you have one stage which requires you to drive the RC car through a maze of toys that cannot be hit. The problem is that its a complete pain in the behind to control, if you have played something like micro machines on the megadrive or super skid marks or powerdrive then you know that driving with this sort of view point can be done a lot better. Then you get to ride on Rex the dinosaur in a scrolling from left to right chase sequence which sounds thrilling but its not really, this kind of thing has been done so much better in other games. I think a lot of effort went into keeping the game varied so as to try and prevent people from getting bored and I need to make special mention of a 3D Doom/Wolfenstein bit where you move around as Woody in a first person view which I thought was pretty cool and not something I expected to see in a Disney based game. The bad side is that the whole game can be done and dusted by a decent player in under an hour and you feel very little need to come back to it.

Thats the thing about the Film Toy Story its a timeless piece of entertainment in my opinion it is about fundamental things, it's about jealousy about how to deal with your own sense of insecurity at your place in the world, at how you exist in various social circles and how the introduction of a new person can alter a group dynamic but its also wrapped up in just good honest fun. I don't think this game really stands for anything other than an inevitable law of the 90's if Disney make a film that wracks in the dollar dollar then they will have someone make a game of it. I am not saying that its a bad game I am just saying that its a very forgettable game, something that you will pick up play and then soon forget. This is what makes games like Super Mario World truly special you play them and they grab a hold of you and take up a place in your life

I would give toy story a 6 out of 10, it is a decent enjoyable but ultimately forgettable game, you can get a cart of it for about £10 which if your looking for a decent platformer you could do a lot worse, but you could also do a lot better. Despite receiving mixed reviews back in the day apparently the game did well but an interesting bit of trivia to note is that there was a lot less copies of the SNES version made apparently due to a Super NES chip shortage which prevented them from producing as many copies as they would have liked to.

OK so quiet a long time ago I reviewed Fatal Fury and at the time I said that Fatal Fury 2 and Fatal Fury special also hit the SNES but I wouldn't be reviewing them as I didn't own them, well guess what since then I got Japanese cartridge copies of both games. So here I am now about to review Fatal Fury 2 AKA Garou Densetsu 2.

OK so first lets put things in to a little bit of perspective. The original Fatal Fury 2 was a head-to-head fighting game released by SNK for the Neo Geo arcade and home platforms originally coming out at the end of 1992 (Early 1993 in the home). The first Fatal Fury came out at the end of 1991 so its sequel only came out one year later, but what a difference a year can make. The original Neo game was 55Megs with its sequel being the second game in SNK's 100-Mega Shock series making its cartridge almost twice as big (Apparently it was 106Megs). Looking at the size of Roms for Fatal Fury and Fatal Fury 2 on the SNES the first is 1.0MB and the second is 1.9mb So once again the second game is nearly double the size of its predecessor but I think its obvious that both of these games are very cut down versions of there Neo Geo counterparts. This doesn't make them bad games though as if you look at it a lot of the games we got in the home back in the old days be they on home computer or console were cut down versions of arcade hits it was all about how could you best cut a game down so that it would run on home hardware without cutting the life and soul out of the game.

With the first Fatal Fury I said that the main problem with the SNES version laid with the conversion that unlike with the SNES version of Street Fighter 2 it was just to far removed from its arcade counterpart. Well the SNES version of Fatal Fury 2 was made by Takara the same people who made the SNES version of the original but hold on its not as bad as it sounds.

One of the main things I found annoying about the original Fatal Fury was that if you played the arcade mode you only actually had a choice of three different characters to play it with, in this sequel you have a choice of eight this includes the three from the first game but also five others. After defeating all eight playable characters in the single player story mode (including a clone of the person you picked), you then face four bosses much like the original street fighter 2. This was true in the Neo version and its also true in the snes version.

OK as basically most fighting games live or die by there character rosters I think its about time I talked about the guys on offer here starting with those who are Playable fighters in the main game mode.

Terry Bogard - an American street fighting champion from a place called Southtown. Terry is somewhat cocky. For those into there street fighter 2 you can consider this guy here to be the Ken type of character. Although in all fairness he feels like a character in his own right not like a street fighter 2 rip off cut and paste job.

Andy Bogard - Terry's younger brother who fights using ninjutsu. He might be younger but he is far more disciplined and serious he is kind of a Ryu to Terry's Ken.

Joe Higashi - the Bogards brothers friend and also a Muay Thai champion. Imagine if your in to your street fighter 2 a small faster Sagat (Street fighter actually got a character more like that later)

Big Bear - an Australian wrestler formerly known as Raiden (as he was called in the original Fatal Fury). It is pretty easy to see he is based on the real life wrestler Big Van Vader. He is your slow hard hitting guy basically.

Jubei Yamada - an elderly Japanese judo master once known as "Yamada the Demon" during his youth. Having grown up on a lot of old Kung Fu type films this guy basically reminds me of your 'Old Master' type figure.

Cheng Sinzan - an tubby master of taiji from Hong Kong seeking to open his own training hall. This guy is probably my least favorite character in the game.

Kim Kaphwan - a Taekwondo master from Korea. This guy is kind of interesting as his offense is pretty much all kick based, it actually works out a lot better than it sounds and I find him quiet an interesting character.

Mai Shiranui - she is the daughter of the head a ninja clan and Andy Bogards's love interest. Also the games token chick fighter basically.

The Boss characters are

Billy Kane - a staff-fighting master from the UK. Now I actually like that we have a Character from the UK in this game especially seeing as thats where I am from.I am not so keen on the fact he was apparently designed to look like the Dynamite Kid an English wrestler who to put it mildly is a bit of an ass but none the less I think he is a pretty cool character both in looks and in his fighting style.

Axel Hawk - a retired heavyweight boxing champion who quit to maintaining his health until he was hired by this games boss to be a sub boss. He is based on former heavyweight champion George Foreman which I think is kind of interesting seeing as Street Fighter 2 had a character based on Iron Mike Tyson.

Laurence Blood - a former matador who uses a fighting style based on a mix of bull fighting and fencing. His matador look is interesting and he certainly stand out.

The main boss is a guy called Wolfgang Krauser - a German nobleman seeking to defeat the men responsible for Geese's downfall. I don't really like the design of this character in all honest I do however like his fighting style its a mix between the German martial art named Kampfringen, the ancient Greek fighting style of Pankration and a bit of wrestling thrown in on top.

The game has very nice colorful graphics, I think all of the above characters are represented well both in how they look and how they move, I also have to say that I am very fond of both the games backgrounds and the tunes in it.

Now on to the bit that matters the most the Gamplay. The original Neo Geo Fatal Fury allowed you to jump between two different planes on the screen to avoid attacks but this was missing in its SNES conversion, this is in the SNES version of Fatal Fury 2 however and I think it really does help this game stand apart from other one on one beat em ups. Other than the ability to change the plane your standing on the gameplay here follows the usual formula of one on one fighting games from this time period, with you playing against the computer in a best two-out-of-three contest. Each of the characters in the game has their own special attacks that are performed by inputting specific commands and combinations many of them being the same sort of motions you would find in street fighter 2 but unlike the first Fatal Fury where they were an absolute pig to pull off here they are with a little practice pretty straight forward. For me this game is a huge improvement over its predecessor, more selectable characters to play through the game in one player, more tactical options and better control just makes the whole thing feel like quiet a big jump forward.

I do think that the game is a little limited as a one player game, but that is something that can be said about most one on one fighting games hey at least there are 8 diffrent characters to try and complete the game with which should keep you coming back to it for a bit. Where this game really excels though is when played with friends, with all of its bright and different characters it has a great roster for multiplayer. This game works at its best when there are a bunch of you and you all sit round and see who is the best maybe with a bit of a winner stays on tournament.

I find myself giving this game an 8 out of 10, yes that is the same mark I gave the original Street Fighter 2 the world warrior and I think thats rather fair because while the first Fatal Fury was lacking and looked a bit like a poor cousin this game is more of a serious contender. If you like your fighting games and want to give the Fatal Fury series a go on your SNES then just skip the first one in total honesty as its sequel is just more of the same but with a whole heap of extra polish. If you want this game well I spent £3.50 getting a Japanese Cartridge of this game, which is a decent price looking online its not hard to get a Japanese cart for around the £5 mark, if you want a pal cart though your talking more around the £35 figure which I think is far too much when you start looking at that kind of figure you should probably look into a download version or a compilation. There was a PS2 fatal fury collection with 4 Fatal Fury games on it for example, or you could look on some of the modern download services where you could get a download of the original Neo Geo version of the game for probably £6 to £8 less if you happen to find it on sale.